ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the findings from a multi-site case study conducted in Australia, Finland and Jamaica which explored the conditions that enabled and constrained the autonomy of school principals. Systematic data collection was carried out in the form of interviews of school principals and the data was analysed using a qualitative approach. The analysis indicates that: (1) school principals’ practices are prefigured by the peculiarities of historical trajectories and ideological traditions enmeshed in schooling sites; (2) these prefiguring arrangements in turn influence varying realisations of autonomous decision making practices across national sites; and (3) even in the expression of high/low levels of autonomy, there are contradictory and contested practices. Through the analysis, three different orientations to autonomy were found: a neoliberal market orientation, a professional practice orientation and an educational praxis orientation.

摘要

本文报告了在澳大利亚、芬兰和牙买加进行的多站点案例研究的结果，该研究探索了启用和限制校长自主权的条件。以学校校长访谈的形式进行了系统的数据收集，并使用定性方法对数据进行了分析。分析表明：（1）学校校长的做法是由历史轨迹的特殊性和学校场地的意识形态传统所预示的；(2) 这些预置安排反过来影响了跨国家站点的自主决策实践的不同实现；(3) 即使在高/低水平的自主性表达上，也存在着相互矛盾和有争议的做法。通过分析，发现了三种不同的自主性取向：新自由主义市场导向、专业实践导向和教育实践导向。